Fanboy Confession: Buying an Xbox 360

Whether we admit it or not we all have our biases. This holds true with gamers perhaps more than anyone else. Most of us only have enough money to buy one system, and often by default it becomes our console of choice. New England Gamer discusses what happens when bias becomes pointless and you're forced to accept that maybe you're not immune to being a fanboy.

Back in my day being a "hardcore" gamer meant owning every system so you could play everything. Todays faux hardcore clench their 1 console like their mother's teat and hold on for dear life. They pass everything by due to some retarded sense of loyalty to a hunk of plastic.

Honestly, with the PS3 gaining ground you'd think it would make good sense for Microsoft to make Xbox Live Gold a free feature, especially sicne they aren't exactly a company lacking in change.

It's for that reason that I'm not going to invest in a Gold membership. If I really want a multiplayer experience, which I generally don't, I'll go to my PS3. It may not have all the same bells and whistles, but it gets the job done for fifty bucks less a year.

That said, I'm still enjoying my new Xbox, even if Mass Effect 2, one of the games I bought it for (Mass Effect 1 being the other) is now coming to the PS3. Kind of a kick in the nuts to honest.

Hardcore is now about owning whats best, whats hardcore of owning one good system with 3 other garbage. If i can have Ferrari i don't want no toyota, unless its a hooked up toyata supra with 1k HP which ends up being more than a lambo. Which is why the only reason i own a 360 cause its fully modded from the inside out.

I'm having trouble deciding how long to follow your analogy. My guess is that the Lambo is the PS3, but then are you saying there are ways to soup up an Xbox or Wii to make them better? I get the feeling you just followed that thought off topic though. The price difference (at launch at least, and to a lesser extent now) is also a pretty funny point.

Sure their are fanatics out there that for some reason have sided for good or bad with one platform of choice but some of us have legit reasons. For some one platform is enough. For others it's due to financial reasons but for some like myself it's due to business practices that I do not want to support in 360's case.

It is not fanboyism that stops me from owning a 360 or financial reasons. It is poor hardware reliability, lack of exclusives, pay to play tax and their insulting tactics.

I did buy and support the original Xbox. At first I was excited about MS entering the console market but was unimpressed with it's content. Now it isn't only content but just about everything else as well.

This is N4G....people will take bubbles from you for asking why they would take bubbles from him....it's pretty ridiculous.

I'm with ya MistaT though....I have Live for Halo and Gears and most of my friends are on Live so I buy my multiplat multiplayer games on 360 for those reasons.....if Halo wasn't so fun to me, I would buy them on PS3 and go free to play online.

I agree with this guy, a lot of arguing is totally unecessary, and of course I want to see SONY do well. I would have never experienced some of the best games possible wothout SONY's ambition, LittleBigPlanet for instance, would have been a completely different game had it launched else where. I own all systems, but I prefer my PS3. They all get a good amount of play time, and I don't have to "defend" my purchase, becuase I do own all three, and I'm happy with all three purchases :)

This was actually a pretty good article detailing system preferences without the fanboy nonsense. I imagine because he's not slinging mud at any of the competing systems, the degree count won't be as high. I got a launch 60GB PS3 for practically the same reasons the author outlined, and is very safisfied with the purchase.

You're right, but it shouldn't be acceptable in other facets of life to attack someone personally because they choose another option in a completely free market. If I still think my Atari is the best console theres no reason that should make anyone else upset.

I'm more willing to accept rampant fanboyism from younger people. A little more then a decade ago, when the PS1 and N64 were competing for instance, I was an utter Nintendo fanboy. I hated the PlayStation with a passion that I now see was derived mostly from a bit of envy on my part. The N64 was a great system to be sure, but looking back I would have rather had a PlayStation. Ocarina of Time was great, as was Star Fox and Rogue Squadron but damn... all those classic RPGs I missed out on.

And the people who had PS1s were probably a little jealous of some of your games (please don't attack me PS1 fanboys, I'm sure you exist). That kind of competition drove the next generation of consoles, so it is definitely healthy, but I just don't understand why an N64 person and a PS1 person could not get along, and I don't remember that as a kid. A few friends of mine and myself had N64s, and a few others had PS1s, and it was an awesome time for me haha

I think a substantial part of my youthful fanboyism derived largely because I didn't have a lot of friends. Video games weren't big in my area and I didn't have a group of people I hung out with who had PS1s through which I could vicariously experience the console. For the most part, my only impression of it was based on my consumer insecurity. I was a kid, getting an N64 at all was a huge deal. If it wound up sucking I [email protected]#! out of luck. There was no way my parents would spring for a second console. So when Sony did better than Nintendo I felt personally threatened by it.

im a fanBAT... a fanboy of Batman :D,that is.. most kick ass hero ever.and hes just a human kicking ass all night by him self.with the odd help now and then :),and not only is he awesome he gets all the girls even some hero ones (catwomen,Wonderwomen),and did i mention hes a billionaire ?

@koh08 Looking back on the ps1 gen, jealous of the n64 games, not even close, here was the tipping point for this nes/snes gamer.

Almost no rpgs that and squaresofts titles were all going on the sony playstation, i wouldn't have traded the ps1's lineup for the 64's ever.

Trade xenogears, parasite eve, legend of the dragoon, and a boatload of other good ps1 games for mario, zelda and star fox sequels, hell no i like a little more variety than nintendo's limited number of franchises offers.

Some of us also look back at the 64's line up, and are instantly reminded why we made a similar choice for the next 2 generations.

Nintendo's line up does not appeal to us enough to merit a purchase at either it's current price point or current game selection. The last part is the main reason people will pick sides with a specific console it's games.

I bought a PS3 for MLB The Show and KZ2/3 (which I haven't picked up yet for some reason) in November......Now, I don't use it much except for Blurays and MLB.....do I enjoy the system? Absolutely but I could have waited a bit longer....Killzone 2/3 will change that next year

I'm satisfied enough. I bought it to play the Mass Effect games, so yesterday's PS3 announcement deflated my balloon a bit. That said, I'm sure I'll find some other games on the system I enjoy. Condemned: Criminal Origins and Call of Juarez are both on my to do list at some point.

I will say I'm dissapointed in the backward's compatibility. I was under the impression that BC came standard with the system. It was my fault for not being fully informed, but it was disappointing nonetheless to try and play a newly purchased used copy of KOTOR (thanks Hollywood Video of S. Burlington!) and have it not work due to my lack of a hard drive.

I bought a Slim Arcade because for my purposes (just playing a few games out of the 360s library)I felt it was suited for the job. Rather than spending 100+ dollars on a hard drive when the Slim ones come out I'm going to buy a used original Xbox tomorrow for fifty bucks.

That minor hiccup aside though, I'm happy. I love playing Mass Effect 2 with my wife. Being able to play the same game at the same time and roughly in the same place is the best kind of multiplayer I can fathom.

After two red rings of death in 06 and then in 07 I gave up completely on the 360. i have no intention of ever purchasing Kinect and because of the failed 360's I've had, I built a hatred towards microsoft. A well deserved hatred if you ask me. I've purchased 2 PS3's as well, but the second one was only to upgrade to the slim, not because of death. Anyways, after all that tomorrow I believe I will be purchasing the new 360s and praying to god nothing like before happens the third time around.

Now honestly, I dont know what exclusives I want besides Lost Oddysey, which I never finished and maybe Infinite Undiscovery, which I heard is a terrible game, but I wanna give it a shot for myself. I might try Tales of Vesperia, although i wanted to wait for the PS3 version to be released. As far as shooters go I hate Halo and MW so i'll be staying away from those. Might try Alan Wake. I dont know. I'm hoping this purchase will be worth it because microsoft has already struck out with me twice and their upcoming list of titles doesn't exactly appeal to my taste. But I'm giving them one more shot...trying not to be a complete fanboy...Although my heart will forever reside with Sony and its Playstation brand.

I have Wii/PC and im happy i get to play PC games on the highest setting and also dont miss any of Nintendos games like SSBB,MK,MG/MG2,ect as well as Exclusive Wii games like MH3,RS2,NMH2,ect the wii has enough games to keep me quiet untill Wii2 Goldeneye 007 with IR,Black ops with IR,Conduit2,Epic Micky,Metroid other M,Tracmania wii,Pikimin3 Q1 2011,Zelda Skyward Sword Q1 2011,ect proper games not grey mature FPS/Shooters that if u play 1 u have played them all i get the best versions of 360/ps3 games on PC linked to my 32 inch LED in super resolution ect,Plus the Unreal Engine is being ported by EA to wii,MT Framework light is up and running on Wii/3DS Basara3 is the first game on consoles to use it Wii/PS3 and the graphics are better than 90% of wii games so with Capcom saying only Event size games on Wii from now on and the MT Framework up and running i will look foward to that RE Wii game there making ect,Wii is the best because games are diverse.